It's Been Almost 24 Hours now................

Okay Mr BH Obama, you have been President now for what, almost a full day now. And what have you done so far? All I see is a guy who wants to go to parties, stay up until all hours, wear fancy duds, and smile when he's in front of the camera. No wonder my life has not turned around yet. See, I told you. All them politicians are the same. Make promises they can't or won't keep just so they can live high on the hog.

You said to have hope. Well I had hope. Real Hope, not the fake kind you apparently are selling. You said, "We can". Well I sorta assumed when you said that it meant you would help. Or do you want to be just another government worker leaning on the shovel while the rest of the crew does the heavy lifting? Almost 20 hours now and I bet you are still sleeping. Or have you even gone to sleep yet, you worthless party animal. Damn Politicians.

Figured I would try to be the first on the block to start in on our new President. No sense wasting time. Get the whining rolling sooner than later. After all, isn't it their job to save me from myself? Isn't it up to them how things turn out for me? Anything wrong here in Acton, Maine is surely the fault of the people we send to Washington. I am owed better than I have been able to do for myself. I am a real Murican.
____________________________

Some notes about yesterday's festivities

While the number of people hanging out on the Mall was damn impressive, I could tell most were not from Maine. Everyone was bundled up like it was cold or something. I heard the temperature was actually about the same as we had here 600 miles away. And yesterday, I never put a jacket on. It was almost warm in my opinion. Some snow on the driveway actually melted for a few minutes there around one o'clock. Cold, jeez, they don't even know what cold is.

~Compared to Old Europe and many other areas of the globe, America is still just an upstart new nation. Compared to other cultures, we are still in our infancy. Yet, yesterday we just saw our 44th president sworn in. Even without the double terms accounted for, 44 presidents means 176 years of presidents. Toss in the repeats and since 1789 when all these coronations started, we have had 220 years of uninterrupted government. We still may be babes in the woods to the old farts of Europe, but we are the oldest solely representative government on the planet. So in the scheme of who is the oldest, we have everyone beat when it comes to a country run through real representation of it's population.

~ Much of the focus yesterday was naturally about what electing a Black as President meant to the Black community. I understand this and appreciate as much as my white boy bones can what it may mean to them. But what about what it means to me, a white boy? Had Barack been white and still had the presence, the charisma, the cool voice, I would have voted for him. But I will say, his being black was a plus for me. Yes, race mattered in my decision to vote for him. It reinforced my decision he was the right man at the right time. He ran without making his race a central issue. He convinced White America, that his agenda was to serve all Americans, not a specific core group. We had had enough of that the previous 8 years with the Bush Dynasty. I don't want a decider, I want a leader. And from where I sit in the cheap seats, it appears we have elected one who will do his best to lead us all.

~ My immediate reaction to the panning of the camera over the crowds that stretched from the Capitol to the National Phallic Symbol was a flash back. A flashback to the anti war rallies of the late 1960s and early 1970s. I also thought of the many Fourth of Julys I spent on the Mall with my head turned up to the skies along side hundreds of thousands other folks while the nation celebrated it's birthday with harmless explosions of color and light in the sky above our heads.


Washington DC is really what it should be when huge crowds like yesterday gather inside it's heart. A couple of million people peacefully standing, peacefully celebrating, and yes, peacefully protesting personifies what this nation is. We are a nation that embraces public gatherings for whatever reason. Our constitution supposedly protects this right of assembly and on a regular basis, we exercise that right. To say I felt a swelling of pride yesterday when I saw the crowd would be an understatement.

~ No Arrests - Apparently all crime took a holiday yesterday. None of the gathered inauguration crowd were arrested or detained. But what really astounds me is no one was arrested in the whole city yesterday. Not one arrest. For any reason. That is amazing given that DC is a good sized city with the usual number of crimes being committed on any given day.

Later...........